Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Genre: Experimental film
For what would prove to be his final film, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami gave himself a challenge: to create a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and his work as a photographer, bridging the two art forms to which he had dedicated his life. Setting out to reconstruct the moments immediately before and after a photograph is taken, Kiarostami selected twenty-four still images—most of them stark landscapes inhabited only by foraging birds and other wildlife—and digitally animated them into subtly evolving four-and-a-half-minute vignettes, creating a series of poignant studies in movement, perception, and time. A sustained meditation on the process of image making, 24 Frames is a graceful and elegiac farewell from one of the giants of world cinema. [Janus Films]

Director: Elizabeth Chomko
Stars: Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Robert ForsterGenre: DramaBridget returns home at her brother's urging to deal with her ailing mother and her father's reluctance to let go of their life together.

At first glance, you might mistake What They Had for one of those well-meaning family dramas about what to do when your mom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But that would discount the exceptional accomplishment achieved by debuting director Elizabeth Chomko, enlivening her scrappy script with a cast of actors who truly are as good as it gets. You laugh as much as you cry, which means you believe in the movie’s truth. - Rolling Stone, Peter Travers

Despite the hardships endured by the characters, nearly every shot seems dappled with nostalgia. The music score is sentimental, with shimmering pianos and trembling strings. But the writing and its attendant characterizations have an undeniable integrity, the particular historical detail offered by the story is not common in films about this era, and the lead performers are moving. - The New York Times Glenn Kenny

The great value of Christian Duguay’s A Bag of Marbles is the degree to which it makes such a barbaric and bewildering chapter in human history comprehensible for young audiences. - RogerEbert.com Matt Fagerholm

Director: Isabel Coixet
Stars: Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Hunter TremayneGenre: DramaEngland 1959. In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop.

Its subversive undercurrent, embodied in fine performances by Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy, is what makes it really interesting. - The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Holland

Director: Robert Schwentke
Stars: Max Hubacher, Milan Peschel, Frederick Lau
Genre: War
In the last moments of World War II, a young German soldier fighting for survival finds a Nazi captain's uniform. Impersonating an officer, the man quickly takes on the monstrous identity of the perpetrators he is trying to escape from.

Director: Joel Edgerton
Stars: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton
Genre: Gay Drama
The son of a Baptist preacher is forced to participate in a church-supported gay conversion program after being forcibly outed to his parents.

Director: Pablo Solarz
Stars: Miguel Ángel Solá, Ángela Molina, Martín Piroyansky
Genre: Drama
Abraham Bursztein, an 88 year-old Jewish tailor, runs away from Buenos Aires to Poland, where he proposes to find a friend who saved him from certain death at the end of World War II.

Much like David Lynch’s “The Straight Story,” a broken-down Abraham is forced to accept the kindness of strangers along his journey. In return, this proud Jewish tailor bestows the life wisdom that came at a terrible price. -
The Seattle Times J.R. Kinnard (88/100)

Directors: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Stars: Elina Löwensohn, Stéphane Ferrara, Bernie Bonvoisin
Genre: Thriller
A grizzled thug and his gang head to an island retreat with a haul of 250 kilograms of gold bullion to lay low; however, a bohemian writer, his muse, and a pair of gendarmes further complicate things, as allegiances are put to the test.

Director: Josephine DeckerStars: Helena Howard, Molly Parker, Miranda July
Genre:Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A theatre director's latest project takes on a life of its own when her young star takes her performance too seriously.